Truck Camping
I am in the process of getting my Ram 2500 6.5 foot bed truck ready for quick overnight camping trips when I don't want to haul my trailer. The first step was to get the power piece taken care of. I just switched my RV over to 6 volt batteries, so I had an Interstate SRM-27 battery left over. Not a great battery, but it is Deep Cycle and has 88 amp-hours of storage.Started looking around and came across the following posts for creating a portable battery storage solution and directions for creating a solar panel support stand out of PVC Pipe.
Portable Camping Battery
Materials
- NOCO Black HM327BKS Group 27 Snap-Top Box for Automotive, Marine, and RV Batteries
- Cigarette Lighter with SAE quick disconnect
- Solar Panel extension cable
- Solar Charge Controller
- SAE to SAE extension cable
- DC Power Outlet
- Solar Panel
- Lead for charging from Battery Tender
I followed most of the directions from this post. In addition to a different battery referenced above, here are the other changes:
- Put a quick disconnect on the charging connection.
- Cut about 3 inches off of each end of the SAE to SAE extension cable. This allows either charging from the Cigarette Lighter or from the Solar Panel without having to rewire anything.
- Wire one end into the Solar Charge Controller
- Attache the other end to the Solar Panel extension cable
- Use the left over wire from the SAE to SAE extension cable to wire the Solar Charge Controller to the battery.
- Added in the Battery Tender Lead directly to the battery for easier charging while at home in storage.
- Added a 300 watt portable inverter with a cigarette lighter adapter. The one I have is no longer and is a modified sine wave inverter. I eventually want to get a pure sine wave inverter.
Portable Solar Mount
Again I followed the directions from this post. The sizes listed below map to this solar panel.
Materials
- 2 10' pieces of schedule 40 PVC pipe
- 6 elbows
- 2 tees
- 48" pine dowel
- PVC cement
- 6 1 1/4" stainless steel screws
Steps
Outer
- 2 - 18 3/4" - A
- 1 - 44 3/8" - E
- 2 - 7" - B
- 1 - 27 1/2" - C
- Cut pine dowel so that it extends through both Bs and C and a little bit into the elbows
Inner
- 2 - 17 1/8" - D
- 1 - 27 1/2" - C
When glueing together, make sure to not glue at the red X's. The dowel is what holds everything together. Once assembled with the dowel through the Bs and the C. Put 3 screws into each B.
